Batting Leadoff, Granderson Helps Mets Beat Padres

During Saturday’s game, Mets Manager Terry Collins approached Curtis Granderson on the bench in the dugout and began asking him questions, like “Have you hit well out the leadoff spot before?” and “How have you felt up there?”

Collins walked away without explaining the sudden inquisition, which Granderson thought was sort of odd — until he showed up Sunday morning to see his name etched atop the Mets’ lineup for their game against San Diego.

It was a turnabout for Collins. Having signed Granderson to a $60 million contract in the off-season, the Mets seemed to want to keep his bat in the middle of the order, where it could potentially do the most damage. Granderson had seldom batted leadoff for the Yankees, his previous team, with whom he hit 115 home runs in four seasons.

But with options running dry, Collins gambled, leaving David Wright a little less protected but putting some punch at the top of the order. Granderson rewarded the team by going 2 for 3 with a home run, two walks and a single in the Mets’ 3-1 win over the San Diego Padres at Citi Field.

“Just trying to get myself on base and get the team going,” Granderson said. “We were able to keep things going and score another run in the first inning, and it ended up being enough.”

Granderson is batting .375 in June, with three home runs and eight runs batted in, quietly stabilizing himself after a dreadful opening month. The Mets have treated him tenderly — he was recently held out of the lineup for three games because of calf soreness — while remaining confident in his potential for big swings of the bat.

Yet Collins left open the possibility that Granderson’s move to the top of the order could start to look more permanent, even if Eric Young Jr., the team’s regular leadoff hitter, returns from the disabled list on Monday. Collins, who certainly seemed pleased with what he saw, said reshaping the batting order to find ways to increase production remained a continuing effort.

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The Mets' Curtis Granderson running the bases after his solo home run in the first inning.CreditKathy Willens/Associated Press

“There’s a lot of talk about who should hit where, or is he better off hitting in a different spot of the lineup where he can relax and do his thing,” Collins said. “Obviously a lot of them haven’t worked; I don’t have to tell you that. But today getting out of the gate like that was a big lift for us.”

The Mets sorely needed this win to close out their homestand, having lost nine of their previous 11 games. With the victory, they earned their first series win in June, and they now head to St. Louis tasked with measuring up against one of the best pitching staffs in baseball.

“This was a big win for us, the way things have gone here lately,” Collins said. “To win this game today is really a boost for everybody on the ball club.”

Things got off to an inauspicious start when, about 30 minutes before the first pitch, starter Daisuke Matsuzaka fell ill in the Mets’ clubhouse. He took the mound regardless, but after his first pitch registered at only 84 miles per hour, Collins and the training staff quickly went to check on him.

“I just went out to ask him, ‘Can he finish the inning?’ ” Collins said. “He said, ‘I have no strength, but I can finish the inning.’ We had to get him out of there.”

Matsuzaka lasted just that one inning, saying later that he felt fine until after he ate breakfast, the same breakfast his teammates had. He could not pinpoint the cause of the discomfort.

“I knew I wasn’t physically fit to fulfill the starter’s role,” Matsuzaka said through an interpreter. “But I wanted to do as much as I could.”

Before the game, Collins said he was looking for a long outing from Matsuzaka to spare the team’s bullpen, so he might have felt a touch of illness upon Matsuzaka’s abrupt exit as well.

Regardless, long reliever Carlos Torres anchored the pitching staff for the rest of the afternoon, allowing one run in four innings, and Jenrry Mejia pitched two innings to close out the victory and earn his seventh save.

INSIDE PITCH

The Mets announced that the left-hander Blake Taylor, a second-round pick by Pittsburgh in the 2013 draft, was the player named later in the trade that sent Ike Davis to the Pirates in April. Taylor will be assigned to the rookie-level Gulf Coast Mets.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section D, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: Batting Leadoff, Granderson Helps Mets Beat Padres. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe